


we can do the zarathustra

by pummelwhack



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 23:08:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pummelwhack/pseuds/pummelwhack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The secret to getting over Hawkeye is this: sleep with the other one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we can do the zarathustra

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah song.
> 
>  **Warnings:** references to drunk sex and the relevant consent issues.
> 
>  **ETA:** Kate turned 21 in canon just a few months after this story was written, so I've updated her age accordingly.

"The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else."

"Thank you, Cosmo Tips," Jessica deadpans, punching a dude across the jaw. "Are you volunteering?"

"I love you, Jess," Carol tells her, and lifts a few feet off the ground to dodge an oncoming thug; he faceplants, scrambles for some semblance of dignity and comes up behind Jessica. "But would you sleep with you, when you're pissed and on the rebound?"

Jessica ducks the flanking attack, which lands square in his buddy's nose. He crumbles backward, and Jessica's at the perfect level to punch the other guy right between his legs; she even puts a little spider-bite into it, because she's fucking pissed at dick right now.

"You know what?" says Jessica, and waits until Carol lands. "You are the opposite of awesome, sometimes. And you need new jokes."

Carol smirks, steps forward and kisses Jessica on the forehead. "Stick to the violence, babe. It's less messy."

  
  


Well, messy is Jessica's specialty.

And as it turns out, getting under someone is not nearly as fun as getting _over_ someone.

Like, literally.

She's drunk enough not to care what a colossally stupid idea this is. Because the body beneath her is small and soft and pliant and everything Clint never was.

And Clint never made _these_ noises when Jessica touched here or there or put her lips around _that_.

The secret to getting over Hawkeye is this:

Sleep with the other one.

  
  


Fucking fainting goats.

Why oh _why_ can't Jessica be like those fucking fainting goats?

This is a new low, even for her. This trumps fleeing to Madripoor with her tail tucked between her legs when her own name felt like a hostile environment because she was too cowardly to admit that to anyone.

This trumps pledging allegiance to an intergalactic anti-terrorist black ops team for the sole promise of violent revenge.

Break-up etiquette, as far as Jessica is concerned, gets thrown out the window where cheaters are concerned. Those courtesies require a certain amount of trust, which she and Clint no longer have. He forfeited his right to amicability and deference of personal boundaries when he decided to stick his wang in something called _Cherry_.

But some things are just categorically, unequivocally _off limits_.

This is one of those things.

Because Kate Bishop is his partner, his backup, his Katie Kate, and the closest resemblance to a best friend Clint's had in years.

And—oh yeah, she's _twenty fucking years old._

  
  


If you're gonna fuck up this substantially, the least your brain can do is let you remember the fun parts.

Because Kate walks out of the bathroom in a towel that is wrapped both too low around her breasts and too high around her thighs, and Jessica is sure that whatever they did last night _rocked_.

But all her brain has to offer is: ow, ibuprofen, oww, quadruple espresso, yes she's sure, nooo, she didn't have a wild night, she's wearing these sunglasses because the sun is so bright on this dark and dreary winter morning in fucking _Manhattan_.

Emphatic ow.

She is terrifyingly naked in this bed that is imperatively not hers, and at the same time there's that pleasantly full feeling of satisfaction that swells around her bones like only a night of just the right attention could possibly produce.

Honestly, this isn't the bitterness talking—maybe the hangover—but she can't remember the last time she woke up feeling this sated. Not that Clint was bad, or that she couldn't take care of herself when he was, but this was like, the Goldilocks of sex: not too rough, not too negligent. She aches where it counts in the happiest of ways.

(Twenty fucking years old.)

And Kate's humming, because this is fun for her, apparently: waking up with a thirty-something in her bed, naked, saturated with sex, like she makes a goddamn habit of this. (And isn't _that_ the very last hypothetical Jessica wants to ponder right now, ew, does not _ever_ want to ponder, eww, could this morning get any worse?

Emphatic ew.)

It occurs to Jessica that the only one who remembers what happened between them last night is probably Kate, which somehow intensifies the sickening churn in her stomach. Something about the twenty-year-old being the sober half of this disaster just feels incredibly fucking wrong.

Jessica is completely out of control—of the situation, of her relationships, of her _life_ —and nothing, repeat: _nothing_ terrifies her more than that.

  
  


Her brilliant plan is this:

Pretend to be asleep.

"I know you're faking," says Kate, and Jessica cracks an eye open just in time to watch her slide a pair of jeans over her ass. ( _Fuck_.) "Clint pulls that shit all the time when he knows I'm coming over and he's too lazy to make coffee. Lucky for me, I've got no coffee of my own to offer so you may as well get up."

Jessica doesn't, but she does open her eyes and receives the grin Kate offers with what she hopes is a mild expression that veils how absolutely _mortified_ she is by the aching attraction she feels at the simple sight of Kate, like her body is remembering even if her brain still can't.

Clad in merely jeans and a purple (of course) cotton bra, Kate crosses to Jessica's side of the bed and bends to retrieve Jessica's underwear from the floor, and Jessica definitely doesn't watch Kate's waist or the way it folds with movement, definitely does _not_ admire the stretch of freshly showered skin spanning her naked back, pulled tight over muscles that form postures only an archer can achieve, muscles that fire arrows as well as Clint can, somehow, even without the odd years of circus experience.

(Seems it's not the _only_ thing Kate can do as well as Clint.)

"I'd lend you some," Kate says, tossing the crumpled pile of mismatching lace garments onto the bed, "but I'd rather not show someone I've slept with the kind of underwear I'm forced to wear when I haven't done laundry in like, a month. Hello Kitty? So not sexy."

She goes to the closet, seeking a shirt, and Jessica takes the opportunity to quickly and hastily drag her underwear up her legs, fastening the bra just as Kate completes her outfit. Jessica sits up all the way, swinging her legs over the edge of the mattress, somewhat more comfortable with her nudity now that the essentials are covered.

Kate regards her, eyes shining in a way that Jessica's got no fucking idea how to deal with.

"There might be like, toaster strudels in the freezer," says Kate. "I'd offer to take you to breakfast but you probably want to go puke in the shower. Also, the man-child needs his coffee. You know how it is. Or was."

She smiles, inexplicably, and presses a quick kiss to Jessica's mouth. "God, you're so fucking pretty," Kate adds as an afterthought, and promptly leaves the apartment.

Jessica spends the following ten or so minutes blinking numbly at nothing in particular until the urge to hurl does, in fact, present itself.

  
  


Carol, predictably, is no fucking help.

"Explain to me how _less messy_ , in your special corner of the universe, translates to robbing the cradle." Carol sips her iced coffee, the cubes rattling noisily like her own personal peanut gallery. "I'm just so curious."

The grin on her face is begging to be slapped. Jessica stabs a link of sausage with her fork, taking pleasure in the violence and the phallic symbolism. "She's twenty, you jackass. That’s only ten years younger than us.” Carol snorts at what they both know is a generous estimation. "And she was sober, so whatever."

Jessica doesn't know why she's putting effort into justifying this; she feels completely worthy of the judgment Carol’s dishing out.

" _You_ certainly weren't. What happened when I left you last night? Why would you seek out Kate Bishop, of all people, and how did you get to her place?" Carol stirs the straw in circles, mulling it over. It hits her as Jessica's braving a bite of scrambled egg: "You didn't fly there, did you?"

Jessica groans, loudly, removing her sunglasses so she can bury her face in her hands. "What the hell have I become, that I'm flying to apartments where twenty-years-olds live, drunk, in the middle of the night, to get rebound sex that I can't even remember having?"

Something softens in Carol and she reaches across the table to take one of Jessica's hands away from her face and cradle it between both of hers. She says, "Not your best moment, babe," and fixes Jessica with a sympathetic smile that offers no pity, because they are best friends and Carol knows better than that.

Jessica exhales, the motion leaving through her shoulders and dragging them down, along with some of her tension. She can't manage a smile but it's nice to have someone in her corner, all the same—someone who has been and always will be on her team, no matter how many twenty-year-olds Jessica bangs.

(Don't get it twisted; it's just the one.)

  
  


Several major pipelines rupture on Tuesday and Jessica's there with Carol, Sam, and Peter, helping people and animals out of the flood. Thor is trying to staunch the flow of water but there's only so much he can do with his magic that doesn't put these victims at greater risk.

Jessica can't get to people fast enough; she doesn't fly, after all, she drifts, but she's doing her best. Carol's struggling just as much if not more, on that damn flight bike Wendy the Sandwich Messiah insisted she use while ground locked. It's bulky and awkward and terrible for this kind of precise rescue effort.

Peter, meanwhile, has depleted his repertoire of Noah's Ark jokes, which is as clear an indicator as any that things aren't moving quickly enough.

Jessica's struggling to lift a frantic young man and his pet beagle from one of the stronger currents when an arrow zips right past her ear and startles her enough that she nearly drops the man, who actually drops the dog. It wails, and Jessica's preparing to go after it when Kate fucking Bishop comes hurtling towards her on a glider balanced on a cable attached to the arrow that nearly clipped Jessica's ear.

It's like, the most surreal thing she's ever witnessed, and that includes her entire history with Skrulls and body swapping.

"Grab the cable!" says Kate, and Jessica does so immediately. "I'll get the dog. You get us out."

Without another word, she drops into the flood and Jessica feels the blood drain from her face as she watches Kate navigate the current in brave pursuit of the beagle. It's barely managing to stay afloat, and then something happens so quickly that Jessica reacts without conscious action: the dog sinks, Kate dives into the flood, and Jessica screams her name loudly enough that Sam hears and materializes at Jessica's elbow.

"What happened? Did she fall in?" he says.

Jessica can't answer him, can't tear her eyes away from the water.

"Take him!" she screeches, manhandling the guy she saved into Sam's arms. He flies off without further question and Jessica pulls herself onto the cable like a wire walker, ready to dive at the first sign of that crazy kamikaze girl.

Kate breaches the surface at a startling distance. "Jess!" she cries, and it resonates through Jessica's whole body in a way she can't quantify right now, a way that aches and pulls and echoes in the hollows of her body. Adrenaline multiplies and she's gliding, more a bird than a spider; she wonders, sometimes, if Carol ever feels that way: more bird than Kree, if Peter feels like a bird in the moments when one web ends and another begins.

They're absurd thoughts but they give her strength. Kate's a bird, too—a hawk, and Jessica needs to feel courageous like her, soaring into an unknown fate with only the thought of saving another.

Jessica snatches one of Kate's hands in both of hers and lets herself enjoy a brief respite as she floats them to a safe spot.

The beagle hacks and sputters, but Jessica doesn't care about anything except Kate: crazy, brave, heroic Kate Bishop who could've drowned to save a dog, who has no powers, little experience, and fewer reasons to be doing this but still heaves herself into the throes of battle like it's a calling—a conviction—rather than an obligation to do good and Jessica is overwhelmed with—she's _overcome_ , she needs to—she needs—

She pitches forward and kisses Kate, hard, on the mouth; her blood is pumping fast and loud, synapses bursting with bolts of electricity like when she uses her spider-bite. The feeling of Kate's lips combines with adrenaline and relief and something else, and brings her physical, emotional high to a climax that winds down pleasantly as Kate begins to kiss her back with a sweetness that makes this impossibly wonderful and _dreadful_ in equal amounts.

But Jessica can't seem to pull away.

It's Kate who does, peering up at Jessica through wet eyelashes. "I didn't need resuscitating, but thanks anyway," she jokes.

"You could have drowned," Jessica says instead, to mask the insane hammering of her heart.

"I could've," Kate says, "but you saved me." And it seems that she's choosing to ignore the brevity of this moment because she grins this silly, dopey thing with her tongue poking out between her teeth and adds, "Guess that means I owe you."

The intent in her eyes is unmistakable.

Jessica bites her lip, trying desperately not to be charmed.

(It's been so long, since someone charmed her for the simple fun of it, just to get a laugh or a kiss—not to ask for forgiveness.)

Kate looks at her and she is wide open, earnest with what she wants, and so, so young; how can she be so young and so sure of what she wants? She doesn't feel like a twenty-year-old, in this moment, but she still feels unequivocally off limits, and Jessica doesn't want to be the kind of person who collects the same regrets over and over.

"I can't," she says, a coward, and turns before she can see Kate's face fall, knowing it'll pull her heart along with it. She gathers the beagle and takes off in search of its owner, too scared to look back, no longer courageous like Kate.

  
  


"I saw the kiss," Carol says, later, when they've congregated to her third story walk-up and are peeling wet spandex from wet skin, assessing wounds and slapping band aids on the things that'll take more than a day to heal.

The rescue effort concluded with zero fatalities, so far as they know. Jessica's feeling pretty good about that.

This? Not so much.

"I wasn't thinking," she mumbles, teeth clamped around the tape she's using to wrap her sore wrists.

"Look," Carol says, assuming what Jessica lovingly refers to as her bossy stance (shoulders set, hands on hips) which is somewhat less intimidating when Carol's naked from the waist up. "I'm not your moral compass. I don't make decisions for you. I'm your friend, which means I support you in all of your decision-making endeavors, including the really stupid ones. And I'm _your_ friend, before I'm anyone else's friend, so I'll keep this to myself, and if you want to keep screwing Hawkeye With Boobs to get back at your sleazy ex, I'll be there each morning after to help you treat the hangover. But Jess—" Her face softens, the same way it does for each and every one of Jessica's colossal mistakes. "Are you sure this thing with Kate was just a one-night stand?"

Jessica wilts. Nothing makes sense, none of what she's feeling or what Kate feels for her; she doesn't know why she slept with Kate, or why Kate let her; she doesn't know what it means and she doesn't know what she wants. She doesn't know anything.

"I don't know," she says helplessly, in the smallest voice she's ever heard from her own mouth, "I can't remember." Carol goes in for a hug, sensing her distress, but Jessica recovers quickly enough to stop the action in its tracks. "Carol, I love you, but _boobs_."

Carol looks down at her naked chest and thusly breaks into a huge grin. They laugh, and it feels a little better.

  
  


It's Peter who tells Clint.

So much for spider solidarity.

"You could have slept with Nat. You could have slept with _Bobbi_ —"

"Are you seriously giving me permission to fuck the other women you think you have claim to?"

"Point taken. Okay, no. I just meant that Kate—"

"Is an adult. You don't get a say in who she sleeps with."

"Do you really expect me to believe this has nothing to do with how pissed you are at me?"

"Tell me you're not actually that conceited. Am I dating Tony Stark?"

"Dated."

"I'm hanging up."

"Please, Jess. I just don't want her to get hurt."

"What makes you think I'd hurt her?"

"I know you, Jess."

"Fuck you."

Jessica hangs up and grabs the first person she sees, which happens to be Sam, drags him to the gym and pounds punching bags with him until her knuckles bruise purple like Kate Bishop's everything.

  
  


On Friday, sewer gators emerge from the ruins of the flood. Jessica doesn't know how or why or _what the fuck_ , but this is the world she lives in.

It doesn't stop her from going ape on these reptiles with the Hulk, pulling out Team Sad combos from their snow trekking days and cooperating with the kind of trust and efficiency Jessica suspects few other Avengers share with the Hulk.

(Pheromones are wonderful, wonderful things, on occasion.)

At the moment, the Hulk is pummeling several gators into pulp, which is... ew. Jessica, on the other hand, is getting in some target practice, frying mutant reptiles left and right and having fun with it. Carol's out of the galaxy, now, with some of their other major players, leaving a team of four heavy hitters that also includes Jan and Logan, who are... somewhere. Helping, probably. Jessica's not sure, with all of this gator pulp flying around.

"You're supposed to kill them, big guy, not make juice with them," Jessica tells him, which earns her a very Hulk-esk grunt that basically means fuck you, he'll maim and kill them however he damn well pleases.

Jessica decides that telling the Hulk not to smash is just about the dumbest thing she can possibly do, and that includes the thing she did with Kate which she's trying not to think about.

Speaking of that.

Jessica looks skyward just in time to watch the collective Young Avengers arrive, answering Jan's call for more firepower and looking ready and eager to pitch in on the gator-pummeling effort.

They gather around Jessica and she stares at Kate, whose face is unreadable beneath her purple sunglasses, for several pointed moments before realizing they're waiting for orders, or something.

"They're everywhere," says Jessica. "Kill them."

That's good enough for America Chavez, who springs into action, and the others quickly follow suit.

It doesn't take long for Jessica to find another gator to wail on. She's thinking by the time this is finished, she'll have worked out all her residual Clint-induced anger.

Maybe Carol was right; maybe violence _was_ the way to go.

But for some reason, it's not Clint she's thinking about, as she pounds fistfuls of spider-bite into tough, scaly skin.

It's Kate, and the way she looked at Jessica before kissing her goodbye that guilty morning after, the way she hummed in alleged remembrance of what they did together: a night still lost to Jessica's memory. It's the way she swooped in to rescue Jessica during the flood and in her very next breath screamed as though her life, her _everything_ was in Jessica's hands. It's the way she looked right after Jessica kissed her, after saving her life—the kind of worship Jessica's never felt worthy of; it's the stupid joke she told just to get a laugh or another kiss, just to give Jessica a reason to smile.

It's Kate, and the earnest, wide open face that made Jessica want to take her home and do things they'd both remember this time.

And Kate is the last person she sees after a gator snaps its jaw around her shoulder and she's flown away in the arms of Billy Kaplan who looks so, so much like his mother.

  
  


She dreams in dark hair and sweet laughter, hears humming: soft and careless, strong and deliberate—feels it against her ear, between her legs; she feels an embrace, warm around her thighs, her aching center, her aching heart—feels cherished and attended to and taken care of. She sees a transparent, ethereal grin like the Cheshire Cat floating with wicked promise below her waist, sees the grin become a face, sees the face disappear once, twice, three times—and she lets it, gives in and gives up, doesn't know what she wants, only knows what she needs. She lets herself be set aflame, lets a pretty girl whisper lovely things into her skin while making her body convulse in frighteningly wonderful ways.

The face becomes the shape of Kate Bishop, sitting in a chair at Jessica's bedside.

She's in a hospital.

"No," says Jessica, "I don't do hospitals. Get me out of here while I'm still me." It's a stubborn gut reaction. She's taking stock of everything: where wires are placed, what hurts, what shouldn't be where it is.

Kate Bishop, for example.

"The only Skrull within miles is Teddy," Kate tells her, but Jessica's too busy planning her escape to take any comfort from that. "You keep that up, you'll tear a stitch."

The sutures register suddenly: an unpleasant, foreign sensation that jogs her memory with a wince. She touches her shoulder, finds that it's still intact.

Takes a breath.

"What happened to the gators?"

"We put them down," Kate says, and Jessica looks at her—really looks at her for the first time since waking; Kate's in a white dress, cute and cut short, worn beneath a purple jacket (always purple) that crops at her ribcage; long socks climb towards her knee and match the jacket, completing the ensemble. It's something Jessica admires: how Kate takes Clint's colors, Clint's codename and makes them distinctively _hers_. "I shot one in the eye, just for you. It was gross."

Jessica can't be blamed for laughing. "How thoughtful," she deadpans.

"Figured you'd be bummed about missing the massacre. All the Avengers say you do really stupid shit when you don't have an outlet for your anger—"

"Who says that? Tell me who; I want names. Is it Carol? It's Carol, right, and probably Logan—"

"So when I saw this," Kate continues, immune to Jessica's babbling, as she produces a stuffed crocodile from beneath the chair, "in the hospital gift shop, I thought, hey, what the hell, it's not a reptilian sewer mutant, but it looks like one, so go nuts." She moves to sit on the bed so their faces are parallel and places the toy in Jessica's lap.

Jessica looks at the crocodile. Looks at Kate. The blue of her eyes is crystal clear, like the purest, cleanest water in some faraway tropical seclusion.

Or whatever.

Jessica can't look away from them for a really long time.

Then Kate smiles—this soft, stunning wisp of a thing, slight and delicate in its beauty, like smoke rings or starlit skies, and the whole thing resonates in Jessica's chest, filling cavities left empty for years with a pleasant, fuzzy heat reminiscent of—

Morphine.

Must be the morphine.

"You'll be alright, won't you?" Kate's practically whispering. The room feels suddenly smaller; there could be a foot or a breath between them. "You won't do any more of those stupid things?"

"Is that what you think—" She stops; she _can't_. Can't even admit to herself that it wasn't. But the words are pulled from somewhere deep and beg for release—

"What happened that night?" she says instead, because she can't stand not knowing anymore.

"Still can't remember, huh?" Kate takes Jessica's hand, the one without the IV, into both of hers, cradling it like something precious. Their hands are just about the same size. It's startling to realize; Jessica feels no bigger than Kate right now. She feels smaller, in fact. "You came to Clint’s apartment, looking for him. You were pretty drunk. I think you wanted to kick his ass." Kate laughs, breathlessly, and it makes Jessica feel a little lighter inside. "I told you he was out and then I tried to take you home, but you wouldn’t tell me where you live. So I took you to my place, gave you the bed. But you didn’t want to sleep. You wanted to talk."

Jessica wishes her memory would jog. Kate's eyes become shadowy, like she's about to give Jessica terrible news. "You were so sad. You told me things that I…" She falters, and she's suddenly unable to meet Jessica's eyes; it makes the feeling in her chest become very, very heavy. "Things I'm sure you don’t talk about much. I told you things I don't talk about, either. You looked at me with those eyes and I just…" They look at each other and the moment aches, Jessica's heart pounding fast and strong like it remembers this, like it remembers everything. "I wanted you, Jess. It's that fucking simple. I would've done anything to make you smile. So when you kissed me, I kissed you back. And I really thought you wanted me, too. You seemed so happy when I kissed you and you said—I thought—"

Her hands retreat to her own lap and Jessica misses the contact instantly. There are words stuck in her throat but she's afraid to let them out. (No longer courageous like Kate.)

"It doesn't matter," Kate says, her voice suddenly indecipherable. "What we did was just—a thing, you know, just one of those nice things. We were real, together. Honest and alive for a night. And it was fun and I liked it, and I know you liked it, too, 'cause you couldn't stop smiling. Even smiled in your sleep. So hey, I got what I wanted: made you less sad, even if just for a little bit. If you never remember what what happened that night, just know that it was everything I wanted."

Jessica's going to cry. She's an idiot; she's been so hung up on Kate's age and her relationship with Clint, she never took a moment to remember that Kate Bishop is not some anonymous sleaze she picked up at a seedy bar for sex; she's a hero, she risks her life to save beagles, she loves and she cares about so many things and Jessica was one of those things, that night, and how could she be so _stupid_ —

"Kate—"

"No, it's okay." Kate stands, and when she smiles it feels genuine but the shadows in her eyes remain. "I don't know what we are, Jess, but I know what we're not. I just wanted to make sure you woke up. I'll see you around."

Jessica sits, clutching the crocodile with both hands, and listens to the _thumpthumpthump_ of her heart sync up with the machine monitoring it until Bruce and Jan appear with smiles and flowers and Jessica welcomes the distraction.

  
  


The city somehow manages to remain standing while Jessica convalesces, safe in her bed at the tower; she's sleeping when Carol kicks the door down, an explosion of energy Jessica's unprepared for.

"I go off planet for three days and you get yourself mutilated," Carol's saying—ranting, really, as she sweeps the curtains open. "I love you, Jess, but I swear, if this is the first in a series of stunts that ends with you Skrull hunting halfway around the world again, I’ll kill you before you get one toe out of the tri-state area."

Jessica squints against startling sunlight. She can't process the intrusion quickly enough, feeling like her world's in slow motion while Carol's stuck on fast forward. "Carol, Jesus, take a breath." She scrubs sleep from her eyes with the palm of her hand. "I got hurt, that's all; this shit happens in our line of work."

"So this had nothing to do with Clint or your newly discovered affinity for younger women?"

Jessica weighs the pros and cons of chucking a pillow at Carol's head. She decides the effort's more than she's willing to spare and settles on a glare. "Fuck you, and no. It was just an accident."

"Promise me you're not on another path towards self-destruction," Carol says, and Jessica knows her well enough to sense the urgency in her voice. She supposes this is just the kind of thing Carol's been anxious about since the breakup, and they are so rarely out of reach when one of them truly needs the other. Carol's probably revisiting feelings from the Madripoor incident or that disaster of a bank robbery and wondering how accidental the injury really was.

Jessica knows her track record, but trying to replace the ache in her chest with a mangled shoulder is pretty idiotic, even for her. "I promise, alright? Can we tone down the dramatics until I've had my coffee?"

Carol seems to soften—or wind down, at least, as she approaches the bed and sits on the edge. "What the hell are you holding?"

The item registers with embarrassment. "Oh." Tucked against Jessica's chest is that stupid stuffed crocodile she's been sleeping with like some god damn security blanket for the past few days. "Kate gave it to me."

Carol gives her a curious look. "So you two are...?"

"I fucked it up."

"Oh, Jess." Carol's smile is sad and understanding, as she brushes sleep-tussled hair from Jessica's face, rubs the arch of her cheek with the backs of her fingers. "Let's grab some lattes from that hipster coffee shop you like," she says, and goes to Jessica's closet, tossing jeans onto the bed and looking for a top. "Come on, get dressed. I'll buy you a bear claw."

Jessica smiles, her mood lifting along with the shape of her mouth. "You? Are the epitome of awesome, sometimes."

"I think you mean all the time," Carol deadpans, making Jessica laugh.

She doesn't think it's possible to miss a person as much as she's missed Carol in three short days, but she's definitely feeling it.

  
  


This time, she goes to a bar.

She pays for her own drinks and watches strangers leave together. She stares at women with dark hair until they either approach her or turn away uncomfortably.

None of them remind her of Kate.

The men are even worse; they don't try to make her smile, they don't tell stupid jokes to get a laugh or a kiss. They shower her with compliments but they don't make her feel lovely.

She leaves feeling emptier than she did when she arrived.

Carol opens her window with a big yawn, standing there in underwear and a ratty old USAF tee, hair mussed like she was sleeping. She watches Jessica climb over the edge and into the apartment like a spider, silent.

"You were right," says Jessica, heading straight for the bedroom. "It wasn't just a one-night stand."

She throws herself onto Carol's bed, pulling a pillow to her chest. Carol stands in the doorway, watching her, smiling that smile—the soft one without pity.

"Fuckin' Hawkeyes, you know?" Jessica adds miserably, turning on her side in admission of defeat. Carol gets into bed, pulls the covers over both of them, brushes the hair from Jessica's eyes.

"It's nice when you're the one making the mistake, isn't it?" Carol whispers, then presses a kiss to Jessica's forehead. "It means you can fix it."

Jessica sleeps there, dreams of healing words and healing touches and blue eyes so crystal clear she dives right into them.

  
  


On Wednesday, the culprit behind the Great Flood and Sewer Gator Infestation of Twenty Thirteen is unearthed.

By the Young Avengers.

The call comes from Billy Kaplan, while Jessica's playing cards with Bobbi. Logan's in Westchester, looking after his school; Peter, Carol, and Clint are taking care of their own thing, and the core four are following a lead in pursuit of the guy their pint-sized versions just found.

"We're underground," Billy says, his voice filling the room. "I don't know where, but there's an outfall in Coney Island that's hard to miss. Come in through there."

"Can you send someone to lead us?" says Bobbi.

The replying voice isn't his: "I'll meet you outside." It's Kate Bishop, and Jessica's heart picks up at the sound of her.

"We're on our way," Bobbi says, and ends the call. "Where's Sam?"

"Here," says the man in question, materializing on cue. "Natasha's waiting in the jet. Let's go."

Natasha flies quickly and finds their mark with little trouble. Jessica's first out of the jet, gliding towards Kate with a smile she has trouble keeping down.

"He's human," Kate tells them, of the culprit, as they follow her through winding pipes. "A scientist. Invented some serum that made the gators what they were; meant to make an army but couldn't control them. They rampaged, which is what caused all those pipes to burst. After we owned their scaly asses, the idiot tried to fix the serum, but didn't have any more test subjects. Now he's got scales, too."

"How'd you learn all of this?" Sam says.

"He was _bragging_."

"Scientists like him are a dime a dozen," Natasha mumbles.

"Miss America doesn't want to put him down," Kate continues, "but we don't know how else to stop him."

"Don't worry," says Bobbi, reaching for Kate's shoulder. "If it comes down to that, we'll make the call."

"It's not that," Kate says, sounding so much older than Jessica's been treating her. "We just figured the city should hold him responsible. There's got to be a way to reverse the mutation so he can pay for his crimes."

"Well then, it's a good thing we've got a scientist of our own," Jessica says, a wink in her voice. Bobbi grins in return.

  
  


When it's over, when Bobbi has successfully de-scaled the scientist, Sam flies him off to make the arrest a formal thing while the others drag their aching bones out of the sewer.

"You're all invited to take a nice hot decontamination shower back at the tower," Natasha says, addressing the kids. "Actually, make that an order. The lot of you reek."

Jessica sits next to Kate in the jet. She doesn't try anything, because they're dripping with sewage, but their shoulders touch and it's nice. Jessica has trouble biting back a smile.

"The hell was that?" hisses Bobbi, on Jessica's heels as they cross the hanger. "You and Kate? Is this a thing?"

"Define a thing."

"You know, if you wanted to piss off your ex, you could just sleep with me."

Jessica laughs. "So I've been told."

  
  


Jessica digs up the only purple shirt she owns, goes to the communal dressing room and watches the other Young Avengers file out of the showers in various states of undress. America Chavez and the Kree boy, Noah something rather, seem to have no issue stripping down in front of Spider-Woman. It's Billy Kaplan and Hulkling, interestingly enough, who keep their towels on until they've got their underpants up.

Kate comes out last, towel-drying her hair. She doesn't startle when she sees Jessica.

She _smirks_.

"Scouting for new distractions?" Which like, burns. But Jessica's not immune to the mischief in her voice. She can play it this way, too.

"I thought it'd be such a shame," Jessica says, sauntering forward, "if you had nothing to wear." She sets a stack of folded clothes on the nearest bench. The purple shirt is there, on top of some SHIELD-issue sweatpants she doesn't mind parting with.

Kate regards the clothes with a smile. Regards Jessica with a lick of her lips.

Drops her towel.

Jessica's heart jumps into her throat, but this isn't her moment; it's Kate's. Her eyes keep coy, trained on Kate's disarming blue ones as she reaches for the pants, tugs them on. Takes the shirt.

"Never pegged you for someone with purple in her wardrobe," Kate says, slipping it on. "You look better in red." And then something happens, something Jessica never wants to forget: she smiles, that same, stupid, goofy smile from a week ago, after Jessica saved her from the flood and Kate said she owed her. Her tongue flits between her teeth and it feels like a chance. Like an invitation for beginning.

Jessica leans in close. " _You'd_ look better in red," she whispers, lips brushing the shell of Kate's ear.

The next thing happens so fast, Jessica doesn't know what happens until it's happening. Somehow, Kate's got her pinned against a wall, _attacking_ her mouth, a week's worth of repression and denying what they feel and what they want culminating in this kiss: this messy, emotional, wonderful kiss that lights her up from the inside out, makes her feel like things can be okay, for once.

It's not a feeling Jessica's accustomed to.

"I'm sorry," she says, the moment she can. "I didn't know what this was. I got scared."

"Why?"

"Because you're twenty years old," Jessica confesses, feeling it pour out of her. "And I'm not. And because you're Clint's partner, and I wanted to hurt him. I thought I used you; I didn't think I could... let myself do this, again."

"Jess, I never expected anything from you," Kate tells her, reaching up to coil a lock of Jessica's hair around her finger. "But you didn't have to shut me out. I can do complicated."

"I didn't know it then. I woke up in a twenty-year-old's bed and I thought—"

"That you took advantage of me?" Kate finishes, her eyes becoming sad. Jessica only nods. "Look, I know you don't get this, and maybe one day I'll explain it to you again, but it's really, really important that you treat me like I'm capable of choosing who I sleep with." She slips her finger from the tangle of hair, takes one of Jessica's hands from her waist and holds it between them. "I chose you, Jess. I chose you because it was my choice. I took you home, I took you to bed. It was my decision. I can't stress that enough. I get that you freaked out because I'm younger than you but I knew what I was doing. I didn't make a mistake; _you_ weren't my mistake, but if I was yours, you only need to say so. You don't need to spare my feelings because I'm young or because I'm Katie Kate. I'm more capable than that; you have no idea what I've been through."

It's true—all of it. They are strangers who share something profound and Jessica can't quantify it, can't give it a name. She doesn't know what this is, but she knows what it's not.

"You weren't my mistake," Jessica tells her, pressing their foreheads together—needing that anchor, that reminder of why it's so important to tell as much truth as she knows. "You were—I don't know what you were. I didn't know it then. But now—"

"Now?"

"Now you're—"

"I'm what?"

Kate's teasing her; the smile is back, the dopey one that makes Jessica's belly flutter involuntarily. There's a dare in the depth of her eyes. Jessica thinks she could drown in that blue, keep sinking until the world disappears and all that's left is the way Kate makes her feel when she smiles like that, when she tells her dumb jokes.

Jessica laughs and kisses her.

"We should have dinner," she says.

"Right now?"

"Yes."

Kate hums in consideration for a moment, but she's terrible at keeping the happiness from her eyes. It's part of why Jessica likes her so much. "Okay, but it needs to be someplace where the utensils aren't made of plastic."

Jessica giggles a bit, taken by surprise. "Is that so?"

"In the past two days I've been to _four_ different pizza joints with America and the boys. God knows I love them, but every once in a while, a girl needs a little wining and dining."

"I can do silverware," Jessica says, and she's equally terrible at keeping the smile from her own face; the effort's ludicrous, anyway—this is why they're here, why they're willing to try it this way. "But I need you to do something for me."

"I'm listening."

"Forgive me for being such an idiot?"

Kate takes pause, feigning deliberation. The moment is playful and makes Jessica feel giddy, like the adrenaline buzz proceeding a successful mission or a battle won. She doesn't delight in these moments often; victory rarely pairs with lack of casualties or other damage and Jessica's always been a glass empty kind of girl. This time, though, she lets herself enjoy the feeling. "I'll consider it," Kate relents, hands idle on Jessica's wrist, her waist.

Jessica grins in full, her eyes dropping to Kate's mouth. "Would you consider a kiss?"

"Right now?"

"Yes."

Kate bites her lip. "Come here," she says, and winds her arms around Jessica's neck. She has to stretch up slightly on her toes to connect their mouths, but the distance isn't far at all, and doesn't make Jessica feel guilty anymore. It makes her feel brave, as she welcomes Kate into her body with arms wrapped around her hips, kissing her the way she's wanted to for what feels like much longer than a week and a half.

The whole thing's a whirlwind, settling into the crater left by Clint's heartache but Jessica's unafraid, because she finally knows what this is.

The secret to getting over Hawkeye is this:

Fall for the other one.


End file.
